Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has cut relations with Israel and the US, in response to proposals by Donald Trump that pave the way for Israel to annex more occupied Palestinian land.
The announcement came at an Arab League meeting on Saturday where foreign ministers rejected a Middle East peace plan that they said was heavily tilted in Israel’s favour, describing it as a setback to peace.
“We’ve informed the Israeli side . . . that there will be no relations at all with them and the United States including security ties,” said Mr Abbas at the emergency meeting called to discuss the Trump deal. This would include all security ties and agreements with US intelligence agencies to combat extremism.
The Palestinian Authority also maintains security co-operation with Israel in areas under its control. Mr Abbas has previously threatened to cut ties with the US and Israel but has not followed through. The Israelis have yet to comment on his statement.
The plan, which was unveiled in Washington by the US president and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, recognises Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital and allows the Jewish state to annex settlements it built on occupied Palestinian land that are viewed as illegal by the UN.
It envisages eventually giving the Palestinians limited self-rule on disjointed enclaves connected by roads and tunnels, but only if conditions set by Israel are met.
The Arab ministers have slammed the Trump proposal as a setback to three decades of peace efforts, saying it was destined to fail because it breached international law and ignored UN resolutions that had formed the basis of previous negotiations.
The ministers said Mr Trump’s plan was the culmination of “unilateral and unjust decisions by the US”, which had already moved its embassy to Jerusalem and recognised Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights seized from Syria in 1967 and considered occupied territory by the UN.
The US closed the Palestinian mission in Washington in 2018 and the Palestinians have not been part of negotiations for Mr Trump’s plan.
The foreign ministers reaffirmed their long-standing commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem within boundaries that existed before Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967.
Initial reactions from key Arab states to the Trump plan were less hardline. Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia urged careful consideration of the plan without explicitly endorsing it. They called for Palestinians and Israelis to resume negotiations under the auspices of the US.
Diplomats and analysts said the Arabs did not want to anger Mr Trump, arguing that there had been a reordering of priorities in the region. The intractable Palestinian-Israeli conflict has become less important in the eyes of some governments, which increasingly see their national interest in closer ties with the US and even Israel.
Gulf countries are anxious about Iran, which they view as the main threat in the region. Egypt has drawn closer to Israel as they fight Isis in the Sinai on their joint border.
